Chapter1

Wally’s Plan

Wallace E. Lawrence (AKA Wally) was tired of the waiting and the preparation. He was tired of the pain, the boredom, and the agony. At seventy-one, he was only a shell of his former self. He had been a thick, indestructible man in his prime. A bad heart, and years of manual labor toiling to improve the lives of the wealthy, had left him with chronic arthritis and massive degeneration in both knees. People always viewed him as stocky, standing at five-foot-ten, with arms resembling Popeye and thick brown hair. Now, he struggled to maintain 140 pounds. Arthritis and worn-out knees saddled him with a walker or a cane (on a good day). Wrinkles and sparse white hair on his head had long since replaced his rugged good looks. Despite his worn out body, Wally worked daily to make sure that his mind stayed sharp.

Each day, Wally reflected on his past life and what could have been. Though he’d lived a good life, he regretted things he missed out on. Growing up in the middle of the Great Depression, his father taught him to work hard and develop enough tangible skills so that he could always make a living and put food on the table. According to his father, Earl Lawrence, “A man should spend most of his time making a living and supporting his family.” Earl Lawrence was a plasterer who made a living not just at his primary craft, but also at any other task that might lead to a few dollars. Wally learned from Earl that you take what you can get, and if you’re able to put enough pieces together, you can keep the family going. No job was beneath Earl, and he made sure all five of his children (Wally and the four girls) understood and accepted this philosophy. When he first started working with Earl, young Wallace made many mistakes learning to be a plasterer. Earl told him that being a plasterer is being an artist, and it requires delicate hands. Because his hands were young and lacked finesse, people labeled him as having “stone hands,” but with Earl’s demanding guidance, he emerged as a master. Everyone he knew called him Wally and probably didn’t realize that his full name was Wallace. Wallace is a sophisticated name and Wally better fit the tasks that he did every day. Because Wally was the only boy and the oldest of Earl’s children, it went without saying that he would work alongside Earl and learn the craft. “Businesses come and go, but there will always be work for the true craftsman,” Earl would say. Of course, as Wally learned when gypsum sheetrock became popular, there wasn’t much work for a craftsman plasterer anymore. But Earl had one thing correct: there was still other work for craftsmen of other specialties.

From his contacts in the construction industry, Wally learned of the growing popularity of ceramic tile and made the switch. In days past, ceramic tile was expensive to make and difficult to produce with consistent color. Several manufacturing breakthroughs enabled large-scale production and made tile affordable to the upper middle class and no longer served as a status symbol of the wealthy. Laying tile was easier than plastering, but it required a few more tools and it put you on your hands and knees all day long. Instead of needing the strong steady hands and the rhythm that a plasterer needed, a tile man only needed to know how to put the puzzle pieces together. Each room was a blank puzzle board, and the tiles were the pieces. The biggest problem was that the client held the “picture of the finished puzzle” in their head, and rarely shared it with Wally. So, he worked on the skill and in time, became a master. The pay was adequate, but the work put him on the floor for ten to twelve hours a day. Cutting the tile filled his hands and fingertips with small pieces of ceramic. Again, the pain of small pieces of glass in his hands became a normal part of Wally’s life and eventually, he didn’t even notice the discomfort. Long workdays, coupled with commuting from his blue-collar neighborhood to the affluent areas where customers lived, stretched his days to sixteen hours or more. After dinner and completing the “male” household chores like auto maintenance, home repair, and yard work, there wasn’t much time left for Wally to spend with his family or have energy to “court” hiswife.

Wally and May had one child, a son, named Robby. Robby only knew a father who came home dirty and covered with the smell of a hard day’s work. Robby knew a father who would often fall asleep after dinner and had few words or moments for him. A father who kept the worries of “putting it together” to himself and never shared his burdens or emotions with his family. The only emotion he could ever remember was the emotion of anger, the one feeling a hard-working man like Wally allowed himself to show. Providing love and affection for Robby and keeping the home intact were May’s jobs. May was a good wife and mother by Wally’s standards, or by the actions and words of Robby.